Staff Blog
Morning Rounds, December 2nd
The top two sports headlines coming out of New York today are “Burress charged, Giants weigh options” and “Teammates Sound off of Marbury.”
The former refers to the New York Football Giants’ wide receiver, Plaxico Burress, who decided to bring a loaded weapon into a club, get drunk, and shoot himself in the leg. That’s not legal. Michael Bloomberg, the NYC mayor, intends to make an example out of him. The latter is about Stephon Marbury, the possibly-insane 20+ million dollar New York Knickerbockers point guard, who has been told by the his team to take the rest of the season off. At this point Marbury is less of a cancer on the Knicks and more of a giant goiter. He’s not poisoning the rest of the team - if anything they’re unifying around their mutual hatred of the former star - but he’s certainly all everyone can focus on when they look their way.
I bring this up because today, in Philly, the big controversy is the fact that the Phillies didn’t offer Jamie Moyer arbitration, electing instead to follow more conventional means of re-signing the aging lefty. Now don’t get me wrong, I think the Phils should have offered both Moyer and Pat Burrell arb and gotten it over with, but lets put our fury in a little perspective before we get all riled up.
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| how old is the cop 2nd from the left? 100? |
Fun fact: in the 2000 NFL draft the Eagles reportedly passed on Plax because rather than show up to their workout he elected to blow it off and attend a concert of a mediocre mainstream rapper (I believe it was Puffy, but I’m totally not ruling out Nelly yet). No one on if he was strapped.
“That’s not really true.” Mike D’Antoni, on Stephon Marbury’s claims that the coach never planned to play the point guard and treated him disrespectfully.
Three lines on their world:
- Plaxico Burress is a criminal
- Stephon Marbury is an insane person
- and Percy Harvin is only questionable for the SEC championship
Three lines on ours:
- The Phillies did not offer arbitration to either Jamie Moyer or Pat Burrell
- Shawn Andrews is back in Philly, a pescatarian
- and Big Five play kicks off tonight at the Palestra
Phillies, Birds, Sixers, Flyers and what everybody is talking about, after the jump
EAGLES
*if you can only read one John Smallwood sits down with Shawn Andrews and discusses his extended time off, what he has been doing to stay in shape (um, nothing?), and his diet. Andrews is entering rarefied air here, I’m pretty sure there isn’t anything he can either say or do that is going to shock us anymore. He just casually admitted the most active thing he’s done for the last several months is eat pizza. READ
Another Bill Conlin ‘King of the World’ column. This time 1Chair wants to end winter (and by that he means ‘to point out the Eagles don’t run the ball’) and instal a coat-check for jelwery and handguns (and by that he means ‘detail my watch collection and mock John Mayberry.) Ugh. SKIP
Les Bowen points out that outside of the NFC East the Birds defense hasn’t been awful. Too bad they play in the NFC East. SKIP
Ashley Fox regurgitates last week’s ESPN the Magazine cover article on NFL players and guns. SKIP
Ray Parrillo on what has changed about Shawn Andrews since we saw him last. SKIP
Ray Parrillo’s notes get Dan Klecko’s take on the Giants, report who the Birds will be replacing Jean-Gillis with, and more. SKIP
John Gonzalez goes to the well by bashing New York. It is an evergreen. READ
Reuben Frank talks to Lito Sheppard about guns and Kevin Kolb about being the man. SKIP
SIXERS
Phil Jasner talks to the team about what they need to do to get back on track. SKIP
Kate Fagan says it doesn’t get easier from here. SKIP
Tom Moore talks with Samuel Dalembert about his shrinking playing time. READ
PHILLIES
Paul Hagan reports that the Phillies didn’t offer arbitration to either Burrell or Moyer. SKIP
Todd Zolecki explains why the Phillies passed on arbitration. READ
Stan Hochman breaks the story that Ruben Amaro’s mother loves him very much. SKIP
FLYERS
Sam Cardichi realizes that Jeff Carter is emerging as a true star. READ
Ed Moran reports that Danny Briere should return to the ice tonight. READ
Cardichi’s notes look at the Steve Downie/Riley Cote matchup and more. READ
TODAY and MORE
The Sixers get a second chance at the Bulls and Penn hosts Villanova in the start of the Big 5 season. We’ll be in and out all day, so check back early and often for all things Philly, and hopefully a look at the NBA players we refuse to miss a chance to see.
As always, feel free to email with any questions, suggestions, comments or complaints.
what a phenomenal find of that old cop! the odds that that guy lives through the end of the week are slim to none.